by Sean Platt
“I was kind of drunk.”
Ephraim was staring at Altruance. Enough that the other man finally stared back, not smiling. Ephraim could feel the crazy on his face, knowing Altruance could see it plain as day.
“What?” Altruance asked.
“He didn’t break his leg. The lawnmower ran him over.”
Sophie’s hand went over her mouth, her eyes wide.
“No, it didn’t.” But Altruance said it almost like a question, doubt clear in his expression. Maybe he wasn’t as sure of his version of events as he’d so recently been — or maybe a bothersome recollection was now poking through the haze, suggesting there was more to last night than it had seemed.
Ephraim turned to Sophie. “There was this big mowing machine. Mowing and landscaping, or something. Huge thing, working in the lawn where Altruance and I were drinking. We fell asleep in the chairs, and when we woke up it was morning.”
Altruance sounded slightly uncertain, “We did not fall asleep in the chairs.”
“It was one of the workers in white,” Ephraim went on. “The ‘ghosts’ you mentioned. He fell off the machine and hit the grass. The mower didn’t stop in time. It rolled right over him. Over an arm and a leg. He was alive, though. He was alive and …”
Ephraim saw the faceless thing in his mind’s eye, covered in blood, limbs turned to flaps and bone. The off-center eyes peering out from that mass of swirled peach nothingness, darting like frightened animals.
Altruance was watching him, his gaze unsure.
And Ephraim said, “You do remember, don’t you?”
“Naw. We were drunk. High as fuck.” But his face disagreed, holding a single frame of horror.
Ephraim shook his head. “It was morning. We’d sobered up. The sun was rising. Don’t you remember?”
“Not the same as you, I don’t.”
“What are you two talking about?” Sophie asked.
“Sophie. You’ve been to Eden before, right?” Ephraim asked, turning to her.
Sophie nodded. “A few times.”
“You ever see one of those workers up close? One of the ghosts?”
“No. They stay out of guests’ way.”
“Ever heard one speak? Make any noise at all?”
“Why would I?”
“Maybe one got in your way and said ‘excuse me.’ Maybe you saw one get hurt and shout. Maybe one of them brought your dinner in a restaurant.”
“It’s not like that. The ghosts stay in the background. Most people never even notice them. They’re meant to be invisible. That’s what someone said once when I asked.”
“Who did you ask?”
“I don’t know. Someone.” She looked flustered. “Why? What does it matter?”
Altruance put a hand on Ephraim’s forearm and said to Sophie. “It don’t matter. He’s confused.”
“I’m not confused!”
“Look, E. You took Lucky Scream. People trip on that shit. People get weird.”
“We were both completely sober!”
“And it sticks with you,” Altruance continued, unmoved. “Little flashes of trip for weeks, sometimes. But it’s just like a dream. The weird shit you think you see? It ain’t real.”
“Then describe the guy who got hurt,” Ephraim said. “Describe the ghost as you remember seeing it when we got up close.”
“Broken leg, I think.”
“Its face, Altruance. You know what I mean.”
Altruance’s jaw shifted. He looked ready to keep denying, but his hesitation told Ephraim all he needed to know. Something was tapping at the back of Altruance’s mind through the fog of drink and drugs, too, and with his MyLife deactivated for dignity’s sake, a hazy memory was all he had.
Maybe he thought the faceless thing they’d seen had been a nightmare. Maybe Scream affected Altruance more than he claimed.
“We didn’t see its face,” Altruance finally said.
“We ran over to it. It was hurt. But all the others stayed where they were. One kept trying to drive as if it hadn’t noticed the rig stalling out on its buddy. We pulled off its visor to give it some air. But its face was … it didn’t have a …”
He couldn’t say it, but Altruance’s expression said plenty.
He remembers, all right. He might think it was a dream, but he saw it all the same.
“What?” When Ephraim didn’t answer, Sophie turned to Altruance. “What about its face?”
“Nothing,” Altruance said, his voice firm. He was answering Sophie but looking at Ephraim. “We had a bad trip, was all.”
All three stared at one another until the issue died. After that, none were willing to rock the boat, but Ephraim felt surer than ever that he was right. He could prove it if he had to. His MyLife had been conveniently glitchy, and Altruance’s had been off, but there was evidence. Or more accurately, there was a lack of evidence.
Altruance, where are the clothes you wore last night?
Ephraim’s blood-soaked clothes had conveniently disappeared, and he was willing to bet Altruance’s had, too.
“Look,” Sophie finally said into the tense silence. She was whispering as if conveying gossip. Her eyes darted to the right. “That woman. Does she look like anyone to you?”
Ephraim and Altruance both turned their heads. A pretty young woman was passing through the restaurant’s lobby. She was tall and thin (maybe too thin) with wide eyes and a slightly oversized nose. She did look familiar. The granddaughter of someone Ephraim knew, maybe. A famous face, passed down the family line.
“Looks sorta like a young Alma Couch,” Altruance said.
“That is Alma Couch,” Sophie said.
“No way. Alma’s in her seventies. Maybe eighties. Saw her just the other day, on a commercial endorsing Eden.”
Sophie’s face was set. “That’s her,” she said, so determined as to sound grim. “That’s her, and I’ll bet you anything she’s had the Tomorrow Gene treatment.”
Altruance half-laughed — but only half. “Supposedly the Tomorrow Gene can do some good shit. But Alma Couch? Hell. They’d have to have knocked fifty years off her clock to make her look like that!”
Still grim. Determined. “It’s her.”
“Maybe it’s her daughter. I’d believe her daughter.”
“Alma doesn’t have kids.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Sophie. You knock that much time off yourself, you’ll end up a sperm and an egg.”
“I know I’m right,” Sophie said, dodging Altruance’s joke.
But Altruance was unmoved. “No way.”
“Settle this for us,” said Sophie, turning to Ephraim. “That young girl there. Don’t you think she used to be the old-lady Alma Couch the world knows?”
Ephraim said nothing. His eyes were wide, but he was looking past the woman who might have been Alma Couch.
“Ephraim?”
There was someone else in the lobby. Someone with cool blue eyes and short blonde hair.
“Ephraim? Are you even listening?”
The watcher was Nolon.
And he was staring right at them.
CHAPTER 21
ALREADY DEAD
“I want out,” Ephraim hissed into his Doodad, the scrambling dongle hanging from its bottom. “Send the plane back and get me the fuck out of here!”
Fiona’s voice was unmoved, unimpressed with Ephraim’s urgency. “Did you find what I asked for?”
Ephraim considered ways he could play coy with Fiona. She’d spent a lot of time, money, and resources getting him to Eden so that he could steal the island’s secrets for her. The task couldn’t have been easy and certainly hadn’t been cheap.
There was the spa cost, in addition to the plane’s crew and fuel. On top of that were the infiltration expenses. She had created a false identity for Ephraim comprehensive enough to fool the screening. He’d needed a backstory with full corroboration behind it, forged identification, and a new genetic identity. If Fiona’s fixers had done their job, no eye scanner
or fingerprint sensor on Eden would uncover his truth.
The money for all of it had come out of Fiona’s private accounts, and the forgery had required Fiona’s best contacts. If Ephraim bailed now, she wouldn’t be able to simply send someone else to Eden to do what he’d failed to do. She’d called in too many favors, used too many non-renewable resources to make this single attempt at espionage work.
“No, I haven’t found it. But listen—”
“Then you have to stay,” Fiona said.
Ephraim paced the communication zone with his eyes peeled. He didn’t trust the scrambling dongle to protect him. Someone must have listened to their conversation the first time — with hidden parabolic microphones if not electronically. Or someone with binoculars had read his lips from afar. Somehow, they knew. Somehow, his privacy had been irrevocably breached.
Eyes darting, Ephraim said, “They’re on to me. They know who I am. They tried to bring me in — first for ‘paperwork,’ then by force.”
Never mind that the tussle with Nolon might have been in his mind. His muscles remembered the fight. His nose remembered the scent of blood.
“Who knows?” Fiona asked.
“Eden security. Evermore. Maybe even Connolly.”
“You saw Wallace Connolly?”
“Well, no. They say he stays mostly on the islets. I just meant that—”
“Forget it, Ephraim. You have a job to do. Until it’s done, you’re not coming back. Not on my dime.”
“Then I’ll pay.”
“You don’t have that kind of money. Especially if I don’t pay you for the job — which I won’t until you do what we agreed.”
“I’ll find the money!”
“You also don’t have a plane. If you want to fly home, take Eden Air.” And her tone added I dare you.
“There aren’t any flights out today!”
“Sigh.” She said the word out loud. “Then I guess you’ll have to wait.”
“Goddammit, Fiona!”
“Goddammit right back at you, Ephraim,” she snapped. “You think someone is listening in on our conversations? Fine. Let’s lay it all out. You’re a traitor. You’re a spy. You’re engaged in massive corporate espionage of the Evermore Corporation, and you aren’t who you claim to be. Everything you’ve told them is a lie. Better?”
Ephraim held his temper. Whether he shouted back or not, he might already be fucked like a whore on a wharf.
“Listen to me,” Fiona went on. “You came to me with the idea of going to Eden. You wanted to snoop around and see what you could find.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that—”
“Second, up until this cowardly moment, you’ve sworn up and down that the only thing that matters is finding your brother. Remember Jonathan? The one who vanished without a trace ten years ago?”
“Of course I remember! But—”
“Open your fucking eyes, Ephraim. This ‘mission’ of yours isn’t going well? It’s not a walk in the park? Are you telling me that cracking Eden open hasn’t been as simple as walking up to the directory booth wearing a false mustache and claiming to be Connolly’s long-lost son? Big surprise. You’re naive if you didn’t expect this to be difficult, and you goddamn well know it if you have a brain. If you didn’t know you were taking a risk by going to Eden under an assumed identity and then trying to poke around where you shouldn’t, you’re fucking stupid. Listen to me, Ephraim. If people are watching you, deal with it. Just do your job.”
“How am I supposed to ‘do my job’ if people are watching?”
Fiona practically scoffed, sounding somewhere between amused and disappointed.
“What happened to the man who barged into my office without an appointment and demanded an hour of my time? I didn’t want to do this, Ephraim. You wanted to, and you talked me into it. ‘My brother worked for Evermore and now he’s gone, boo-fucking-hoo! But anyway, Fiona … would you like to pay for it all?’”
Ephraim was about to reply, but Fiona rolled on.
“I told you from the beginning that I was only willing to invest the substantial resources required for your little family reunion if it benefitted me. And then, if I remember correctly, I went on to say that there was no way you’d be able to get information out of Evermore. ‘Eden’s a black box,’ I said. Especially the Tomorrow Gene. They do the procedures, but they don’t explain every detail to the clients, down to the individual enzyme, to clients. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made, Ephraim, so without all those details, how exactly are you going to find anything that would remotely help Riverbed? Actors and actresses go in for the Tomorrow Gene and, if you believe the rumors, leave the island decades younger. Have you seen Colton Thomas? He looks goddamn thirty again, and the guy’s fifty if he’s a day. Or Elise Morton? Do you remember how cute she was on Morton and Company twenty years ago? Well, she’s ten years cuter than that now, at least. That’s not the kind of thing people ask too many questions about. ‘Just make me younger and I’ll sign anything,’ they say. Then they sign and never breathe a word about it. People will do anything to stay young forever. What your little plan failed to understand from the start was that submitting to an illegal procedure people don’t remotely comprehend isn’t something that comes with documentation and instructions. For Hollywood, going in blind is an easy yes.”
“That’s not what—”
“I brought all of this up. It took months for you to convince me you could pull it off. I’d say, ‘It’s impossible, Ephraim! The information simply isn’t there — not out where anyone other than Eden’s bosses can get it!’ But you kept telling me, ‘I can do it, Fiona.’ Then you’d lay out miles of reasons why you could make it work. Was it all just bullshit, Ephraim? Was I wrong to believe you? To invest in you? Because dammit, I do not like making mistakes.”
“But—!”
“Was I wrong to believe what you said about how finding your brother meant more to you than anything? To cave, when you knelt on my office floor, begging? Crying?”
“Goddammit, Fiona! I think I killed someone!”
“Mmm-hmm. And yet you saw the guy you ‘killed’ later on,” Fiona said, beyond skeptical, omitting the part about Ephraim being high at the time, though it was implied.
“Maybe he has a twin; I don’t know!”
“And you have no MyLife record of it.”
“It’s been glitching. Maybe Eden is jamming it as part of their NDA, or—”
“No blood. Nobody saw anything. Not even the guy who saw the faceless monster fall under the lawnmower — the guy who now no longer remembers that, either. You’ve got no bloody clothes. No one heard screams.”
“How could it scream if it didn’t have a mouth?”
“Nobody heard you fighting this morning. None of your neighbors heard TV’s crashing or windows breaking. No shouts; no noise? And after you kill this guy, supposedly, Eden just lets it go, huh? You’re sure they know who you are, but they didn’t send their version of the cops even after you knocked off one of their own.”
“Goddammit, Fiona, you’re not listening to me!”
“No, Ephraim,” she said, her voice dropping like an anchor. “You aren’t listening to me. You’re listening to you. And that’s something I warned you about from the start. I said you weren’t stable enough for this and your shrink agreed. You act like this is a surprise. You act like you’ve never glitched your MyLife by having a panic attack before. You know how the biometrics work, and you know damn well that a MyLife’s failsafe will shut it down when adrenaline rises to unsafe levels.”
“That’s not what happened.”
But Fiona didn’t even seem to hear him. She went on. “And you act like you’ve never done anything irrational before. If I remember right, your last violent encounter ended with you getting your ass beaten within inches of death. Was it worth it? I mean, you claim to have stopped a rape before those guys took you down. Dr. Scully doesn’t totally agree that’s what happened, but if you say it w
as …”
Ephraim gritted his teeth. He didn’t like Fiona’s implication. Not at all. Just as he hadn’t liked what the supposed assailants in that almost-rape — the ones who’d given him his scar — had said afterward. Or the way the victim, terrified into silence, had later corroborated their story and made Ephraim look like the bad guy.
“You want to come home without doing what you promised me you’d do if I helped you look for Jonathan? Great. Then grow some wings or start swimming. How does that sound?”
“Fiona, I—!”
But the line was already dead.
CHAPTER 22
GO WITH HIM
Ephraim boarded the tram from the Retreat to the Strand, figuring he could hop another one to the Fête later on. None of the three islands seemed particularly promising for what he was after, but the only other Eden islands that Ephraim was permitted to step onto was Reception.
No guests were allowed on the Denizen, where permanent residents lived. The entire group had already been reminded casually of that several times, as if they might take it into their heads to swim what looked like three or four miles of open ocean — and even that assumed security wasn’t an issue, which it was. Elle had cheerfully informed them that Eden patrol boats were trained to shoot first and ask questions later, blaming their lethal predisposition on the threat of international pirates come to steal Eden’s gold.
But he also couldn’t go to the numbered “backlot” islets. The Denizen wanted privacy, but Eden’s secrets probably wanted it more. Ephraim was willing to bet that anyone trying to sneak aboard the islets would be deemed “pirate-like” and dealt with accordingly.
He also couldn’t go to the Pearl. Even Sophie and Altruance, both of whom planned to have Tomorrow Gene treatment, couldn’t go there yet. You got a day pass to the Pearl when it was time for your treatment. They let you onto the island, did their thing, then kicked you out. Of all the places Ephraim knew he couldn’t go, the Pearl was probably most relevant. He wasn’t going to learn anything about Jonathan’s disappearance on the Pearl, but he might at least find insider information on the Tomorrow Gene treatment … and then get the fuck out of here immediately after that.